The Ship of Adventure Page 9

However, he was still of the same mind after his swim. The others couldn’t help admiring him – they really thought it was a brave thing to do, to go and tackle Mr Eppy and accuse him of ‘borrowing’ their ship!

  He went off to find Mr Eppy. He was not in his cabin. He was not in his deckchair. Where could he be? Philip began to hunt over the ship for him, determined to find him. He saw him at last coming out of the radio office.

  ‘Mr Eppy,’ said Philip, marching boldly up to him. ‘What have you done with our ship?’

  Mr Eppy stopped. Philip wished to goodness he did not wear those dark glasses. He had no idea if Mr Eppy was surprised, angry or what.

  He soon knew. Mr Eppy spoke in a very snappy voice indeed. ‘What do you mean, boy? What ship do you speak of?’

  ‘The little carved ship we showed you – the one in the bottle – called Andra,’ said Philip, wishing more than ever that he could see Mr Eppy’s eyes and read what was in them. ‘What have you done with it?’

  ‘I think you are mad,’ said Mr Eppy coldly. ‘Quite mad. As mad as Lucian, who comes to me with a fairy tale about a little girl, a gull and a piece of parchment. What nonsense, what fiddlesticks! And now you come to me with a question about a toy ship! You think I have taken it to float in my bath, perhaps?’

  ‘Did you take it, Mr Eppy?’ persisted Philip.

  ‘No! And do not dare to insult me with your fairy tales and your crazy questions any more!’ thundered Mr Eppy.

  He strode off, his mouth very grim. Philip was a little shaken. Well – he had not got much change out of Mr Eppy, that was certain. Blow the man! Philip felt absolutely certain he had got the ship. He went down to meet the others in his cabin. They would be waiting for him there.

  He opened the cabin door and went in. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘it’s no go. He says he hasn’t got the ship – but I bet he has. I feel it in my bones!’

  ‘Then your bones tell you wrong,’ said Jack, and he pointed across the room to the shelf on the wall. ‘Look there.’

  Philip looked, and gasped. The little carved Ship of Adventure was back in its place again!

  ‘Where was it?’ he asked. ‘Gosh, what an idiot I’ve made of myself, accusing Mr Eppy of having it! Where on earth was it?’

  ‘We don’t know,’ answered Dinah. ‘We all came in here a few minutes ago after we left you on your way to tackle Mr Eppy – and the first thing we saw was the ship!’

  ‘There it was, on the shelf – just where we left it this morning,’ said Lucy-Ann.

  ‘Who put it back?’ asked Philip.

  ‘Aha – if we knew that, we’d know who took it,’ said Jack. ‘I still think it was Mr Eppy. If you remember, he came in to lunch after we did – he could easily have slipped down here and taken the ship then. And he could just as easily have put it back whilst we were having our swim. If he saw us in the pool, which is quite likely, he’d know that he had plenty of time to slip down here and replace it.’

  ‘The knob’s a bit loose,’ said Dinah. ‘We think he found how it worked all right, and removed that wooden section and examined the inside of the ship thoroughly.’

  ‘I see. And when he found there was nothing there he generously brought it back!’ said Philip. ‘I don’t like that man. He’ll be hunting round all our cabins looking for our other bits of parchment, if we don’t look out.’

  Lucy-Ann felt alarmed. ‘Oh, dear – will he find them, do you think?’

  ‘He might,’ admitted Philip. ‘They seem jolly good hiding places to us, but they probably would be easy enough for him to discover.’

  ‘I say – are we going to get the other bits deciphered now?’ said Dinah suddenly. ‘You know, we thought we’d ask the little Greek woman who keeps the shop on the ship, and the deck steward. Suppose Mr Eppy gets to hear we’ve been showing other people more bits of parchment. He’ll soon be after them.’

  ‘Yes, that’s a point,’ said Jack. ‘But if we don’t get them deciphered, we’re no better off than we were. Hidden treasure is no use to anyone if they don’t know in the least where it is. Anyway, we don’t even know if the plan does show hidden treasure – all we know is that it is a genuine old document, and that Mr Eppy is distinctly interested.’

  ‘I think we could trust the little shopwoman not to say a word,’ said Lucy-Ann. ‘She’s nice, and she likes us. If we told her it was a secret, wouldn’t she keep it? After all, we’ve got to ask somebody!’

  They debated whether the shopwoman was trustable or not. They decided that on the whole she was.

  ‘She said she’d show me some photographs of her children,’ said Lucy-Ann. ‘She’s got three on some little island or other. She leaves them with her grandmother when she goes on the ship. Couldn’t we all go and see the photographs, and then ask her about the parchment?’

  ‘Trust Lucy-Ann to know everyone’s life history, ’ grinned Philip. ‘It beats me how she does it! She already knows the names of the second officer’s children, and she knows everything about the stewardess’s old mother and what illnesses she suffers from, and she even knows how many dogs the captain himself has kept during his whole life!’

  ‘I don’t,’ said Lucy-Ann indignantly. ‘I simply wouldn’t dare to ask him about dogs. Anyway, he can’t have had any on board ship.’

  ‘I’m only pulling your leg, Lucy-Ann,’ said Philip. ‘Actually I think your idea of looking at the shopwoman’s photos and then springing our parchment on her – or a bit of it – is a good one.’

  ‘Let’s go now, then,’ said Lucy-Ann, looking at the clock. ‘Everyone always has a sleep in the afternoon at this time – no one is ever in the shop. She’ll be alone.’

  They went off together. Philip had the idea of first finding out where Mr Eppy was – just in case he should be snooping round!

  He came back and reported. ‘He’s asleep in his deck-chair on the promenade deck. His head’s well back, and he’s not reading or anything.’

  ‘How do you know he’s asleep?’ demanded Jack. ‘You can’t tell if his eyes are open or shut behind those awful dark sunglasses.’

  ‘Well – he looked asleep,’ said Philip. ‘Sort of limp and relaxed. Come on – we’ll go to the shop now.’

  They went to the little shop. The Greek woman who kept it showed all her white teeth in a pleased smile when she saw the children with Kiki and Micky.

  ‘Ah, Kiki, Micky, and what mischief have you done?’ she asked, tickling the little monkey and poking Kiki in the chest. ‘One, two, three, GO!’

  Kiki immediately made a noise like a pistol shot, which was just what the little Greek woman meant her to do. She was quite familiar with Kiki’s ways, and always roared with laughter when the parrot hiccuped, coughed or sneezed.

  ‘Tell him to snizz,’ she begged. ‘I like when he snizzes.’

  So Kiki obliged with a fine variety of ‘snizzes’, much to Micky’s amazement. Then out came the photographs and the children were treated to a life history of each of her three little girls. Dinah thought that surely never in this world had there lived such children before – so sweet, so good, so loving, so religious, so incredibly beautiful – and so extraordinarily boring!

  Then Jack thought it was their turn to talk. He nudged Philip, who at once brought out his piece of the map. ‘Look,’ he said to the shopwoman. ‘Can you make head or tail of this for us? It’s an old, old document we found. What does it say – and what does it show?’

  The Greek woman looked at it sharply with her bright black eyes. ‘It is a plan of some sort,’ she said. ‘But you have not got the whole of it here – what a pity! It shows part of an island called Thamis or Themis, I cannot tell which. See, here is its name in Greek – but you will not understand the letters, of course. Your alphabet is different. Yes, it is part of an island, but where it is I do not know.’

  ‘Can’t you tell anything else from the map?’ asked Dinah.

  ‘There is something of importance on the island,’ said the woman. ‘Perhaps a temple? I do not know.
There is a building marked here – or maybe it is meant to be a city. Again I do not know. I could tell you more if I had the whole of the map.’

  The children had been so engrossed in all this that they had not heard the soft footsteps of someone coming. A shadow fell across them. They looked up and Lucy-Ann gave a gasp. It was Mr Eppy, his dark glasses hiding his eyes as usual.

  ‘Ah – something interesting. Let me see,’ said Mr Eppy coolly, and before anyone could stop him he had twisted the parchment out of the Greek woman’s fingers and was looking at it himself!

  Philip tried to twist it out of his fingers, but Mr Eppy was on his guard. He held it aloft and pretended to joke.

  ‘He won’t let Mr Eppy see! Bad boy!’

  ‘Bad, naughty boy!’ echoed Kiki at once. Micky, thinking it was a game of snatch, suddenly leapt up in the air and lunged out at the paper. He got it in his little paw, fell back to Philip’s shoulder, and then, still with the parchment in his hand, leapt to the top of the shop and sat there, out of reach, chattering excitedly.

  Mr Eppy knew when he was beaten. ‘What a funny little creature!’ he said in an amiable voice that managed to sound quite angry too. ‘Well, well – we’ll have a look at the parchment another time!’

  And with that he left the dumbfounded children, walking off rapidly back to his deckchair.

  13

  Goodbye, Mr Eppy!

  ‘Well!’ said Dinah, finding her voice first. ‘Of all the cheek! Philip, he couldn’t have been asleep when you saw him in his chair! He must have seen you looking at him and guessed you were up to something – and looked about till he found us.’

  ‘Blow him,’ muttered Philip. ‘Now he’s seen two of the bits. He knows what the island is too because the name was on that second bit. That’s an awful bit of bad luck.’

  They left the surprised little shopwoman and went moodily up to the bow of the ship, glad to feel the wind in their faces. Micky had come down as soon as Mr Eppy had left them, and Philip had his bit of parchment back safe. But the damage was done – Mr Eppy had seen it!

  ‘If there is anything in our idea, Mr Eppy has seen enough to cotton on to already,’ said Jack gloomily. ‘I can’t say that we have been at all clever over this. Anything but.’

  ‘Simply given our secret away,’ said Dinah. ‘We’re losing our grip!’

  ‘Anyway – I don’t really see what we could have done about the treasure,’ said Lucy-Ann suddenly. ‘I mean – we can’t possibly go hunting for it, even if we knew exactly where it was. So we might as well give it up, and if Mr Eppy wants to go hunting after it, let him!’

  ‘Well, I must say you’re very generous, giving up what might have been our treasure – and just saying Mr Eppy can have it!’ said Jack, exasperated. ‘All because you don’t want an adventure again!’

  ‘Oh, I say!’ cried Kiki, and the children stopped talking at once. Kiki had given her usual signal for the approach of Lucian. Up he came, grinning amiably. He appeared to have completely forgotten his last meeting with them in his cabin, when he had been in tears. His face still looked a bit blotched, but otherwise he seemed very cheery.

  ‘Hello!’ he cried. ‘Where on earth have you been the last half-hour? I’ve been looking for you everywhere. I say, look what Uncle’s given me!’

  He showed the children some pieces of Greek money. ‘I expect he was sorry for going for me like that, don’t you?’ he chattered on. ‘Anyway, he’s in a very good temper now. Aunt can’t understand it!’

  The children could understand Mr Eppy’s sudden good spirits very well indeed. They grinned wryly at one another. Mr Eppy had got what he wanted – or some part of what he wanted – and he was pleased. It struck Jack that Mr Eppy probably always got what he wanted, in one way or another. He wouldn’t much care which way. He thought uneasily that they ought to find safer hiding places than the ones in the cabins for the remaining pieces of parchment.

  He felt very gloomy. What was the use of bothering? They would never be able to do much about the treasure! How could they? Aunt Allie would not hear of it, he knew. And there would have to be some grown-up in charge. If only Bill had come on the trip with them!

  An idea came into his head. ‘I’m going off by myself for a little while,’ he announced. ‘See you later.’ Off he went with Kiki, thinking about his idea. What about looking up the island Thamis or Themis, whichever it was, on a modern map and seeing if it was shown there? It would be interesting to see whereabouts it was. Why, it might be quite near where they were cruising!

  He went down to the ship’s little library with Kiki and asked for a good map of the islands. The librarian gave him one and looked disapprovingly at Kiki. He did not like parrots in his quiet library.

  ‘Blow your nose,’ Kiki advised him. ‘Wipe your feet! How many times have I told you to shut the door? Pooh! Gah!’

  The librarian said nothing at all, but looked down his nose. He had never in his life been spoken to like that – and by a parrot too! He was most irritated.

  ‘One, two, three, GO!’ said Kiki, and made the noise of a pistol going off. The librarian almost jumped out of his seat.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ said Jack hastily, afraid that the librarian would turn him out. He tapped Kiki on the beak. ‘Manners, Kiki, manners. Shocking!’

  ‘Shocking,’ repeated Kiki in a mournful voice, and began to sniff in exactly the same way that the librarian did.

  Jack pored over the map of the islands, forgetting all about Kiki in his interest. For a long time he could not see Thamis – and then there it was, before his eyes! It was not a large island, and was marked with what seemed to be a city or town just on the coast. One or two small marks seemed to indicate villages – but there was only the one town.

  So that was where the legendary fleet of treasure ships went years and years ago! They put in at that city by the sea, sailing into the port at dead of night. How did they unload the treasure? Were the people there in on the secret? Where was it put? It must have been hidden remarkably well if no one had ever found it in all the years that had gone by.

  Jack pored over the map, his imagination giving him picture after picture, and making him stirred up and excited. He gave a deep sigh, which Kiki immediately echoed. If only he could go to Thamis – to that city by the sea – if only he could just have a look at it!

  But it would be Mr Eppy who would do that – Mr Eppy who knew all the islands by heart, and who could afford to hire ships to go from one to the other, exploring each one as he pleased. Jack folded up the map with another sigh. He put the whole idea away from him once and for all. You couldn’t go on treasure hunts unless you were grown-up – his common sense told him that all the plans he and the others had made were just crazy dreams – lovely dreams, but quite impossible.

  Jack strolled out of the library and up on deck. They were heading for another island. They were to go close by it so that the passengers might see the romantic coastline, but they were not calling there.

  At least, so Jack had thought. As they came near he saw that he must have been wrong. The ship was either going into the port there, or people were going off in a motor boat that had come out to meet the ship. The ship’s engines stopped at that moment, and Jack leaned over the side to watch the motor boat nose its way near.

  It soon lay alongside the big ship, rising and falling gently on the waves. A ladder was shaken down the side of the Viking Star. Someone began to climb down, someone who waved back to others on the ship and called out in a foreign language.

  And then Jack got a shock. The someone was Mr Eppy! He was calling goodbye to his wife and nephew. He climbed right down to the motor boat and jumped deftly to the deck. His big suitcase was lowered on a rope and swung down on the deck beside him. He looked up and waved again, his dark glasses showing clearly.

  Jack scowled down angrily and miserably. Blow Mr Eppy, blow him! Jack felt sure he knew why he was leaving the boat. Mr Eppy knew enough to set things in motion for the grand And
ra treasure hunt. He was going to Thamis. He would smell out the treasure that Jack and the others had happened on in that old map. It would be his.

  And probably Jack would never even know what happened about it – never know if it was found, or what it was, or anything. It was like reading a tremendously exciting book halfway through, and then having the book taken away and not knowing the end of the story.

  The motor boat chugged away from the ship. Mr Eppy and his sunglasses disappeared. Jack turned from the deck rail and went to find the others. He wondered if they knew about Mr Eppy.

  He found them in the cabin. Micky had eaten something that disagreed with him and had been sick. They were looking after him anxiously. They had not even noticed that the engines of the ship had stopped and were now starting again.

  ‘There!’ Dinah was saying as Jack came into the cabin. ‘He’s all right now – aren’t you, Micky? You shouldn’t be so greedy.’

  Jack came in looking so gloomy that everyone was startled. ‘What’s up?’ said Philip at once.

  ‘It’s all up,’ said Jack, sitting down on the nearest bed. ‘Who do you think’s gone off in a motor boat – suitcase and all?’

  ‘Who?’ asked everyone.

  ‘Mr Eppy!’ said Jack. ‘Hotfoot after our treasure! He knows the island, he’s guessed the Andra treasure may be there – and he’s gone to set things going. At least, that’s how I see it!’

  ‘That’s a blow,’ said Philip. ‘We’ve messed everything up properly. He certainly doesn’t let grass grow under his feet,’

  ‘We may as well give up all our grand ideas,’ said Dinah. ‘What a shame! I did feel so terribly thrilled.’

  ‘I bet he had just been sending a radio message for a motor boat to take him off here when I met him coming out of the radio office,’ said Philip, remembering. ‘Just that first bit of parchment must have got him going. Now he’s seen the second and he’s certain!’

  ‘It’s bad luck,’ said Lucy-Ann. ‘We don’t usually mess up things like this. Hello – who’s that?’

  ‘Oh, I say!’ said Kiki at once – and sure enough the door opened, and in came Lucian with his everlasting cry. ‘Oh, I say! What do you think’s happened?’